Captured in Oxfordshire in 1990, these would-be portraits find their formidable subjects inverted, as though hanging upside-down. They are part of Who Does Not Love a Tree?, which considers the connection between humans and nature., a n aptly titled new exhibition of work by the late Canadian artist Rodney Graham., which considers the connection between humans and nature.
Per Graham’s interest in the camera obscura, there is a tacit examination of image-making and documentation. As he explained in 2005: “You don’t have to delve very deeply into modern physics to realise that the scientific view holds that the world is really not as it appears. Before the brain rights it, the eye sees a tree upside down in the same way it appears on the glass back of the large-format field camera I use.”
Who Does Not Love a Tree? is at Lisson Gallery, Bell Street, London NW1, until 11 April
